Effective climate finance coordination? Stakeholder perceptions, climate change policy implementation and the underlying political economy factors in Kenya

ABSTRACT

The last two decades have seen an increase in climate financing channelled to the Global South from multiple sources, putting a spotlight on climate finance coordination challenges in recipient countries. However, the climate finance coordination debate has largely been centred at climate finance provision at the global level. Emerging literature has called on recipient countries to establish effective climate finance coordination mechanisms. Yet, the calls have not clarified what accounts for an effective coordination mechanism. This paper addresses the gap by analyzing stakeholder perceptions of effective climate finance coordination in Kenya. Kenya has instituted a legal and institutional framework to guide climate finance coordination, but challenges of coordination persist. Using the political economy framework, the paper analyzes political economy factors influencing stakeholder perceptions and climate change policy implementation to identify political contestations that need to be reconciled. Data is drawn from relevant literature, 29 key informant interviews and 4 focus group discussions at the national level in Nairobi and at the sub-national level in Turkana County. Deductive thematic analysis is adopted for coding and analyzing data. Results indicate that different ideologies, interests, incentives, politics, power relations and contestation over resources largely influence stakeholder perceptions of an effective climate finance coordination mechanism and climate policy implementation. The operationalization of the National Climate Change Council and the National Climate Change Fund are the most contested. The paper calls on policy actors to reconcile political issues of contention for recipient countries to institute coordination mechanisms that gain ownership and widespread legitimacy from stakeholders.

Key policy highlights

• Underlying political economy factors including different ideologies, interests, politics, incentives, power relations and contestation over resources largely influence stakeholder perceptions of effective climate finance coordination as well as climate change policy implementation.

• The consequential political contestations need to be reconciled; otherwise, the established coordination mechanism is less likely to gain ownership and widespread legitimacy from climate change stakeholders.

• This calls for meaningful and extensive stakeholder engagements and consensus building to minimize contention, particularly over the operationalization of the National Climate Change Council and the National Climate Change Fund in Kenya.

KEYWORDS:

• Effective climate finance coordination
• stakeholder perceptions
• political economy
• climate policy
• Kenya

Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge all the respondents for offering their valuable time for the interviews and focus group discussions. In addition, the authors are indebted to the peer reviewers and editors for their valuable comments and input.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This paper is part of the ‘Governing Adaptation Finance for Transformation (GAP)’ project financed through the Danida Fellowship Centre (DFC) and implemented in collaboration with research institutions in Denmark, Kenya and Tanzania.